This blog is to share my main hobby which is painting and wargaming with miniatures. I paint and play historics, fantasy and sci-fi, from 6 mm to 28 mm.

9/18/2010

Bridgehead.

Crossfire is a ruleset of WWII that I bought years ago and never got the opportunity to play it until now. So in one evening I took all my 1/72 plastic soldiers mounted on individual bases and rebased them in bases of 4 x 4 cm. but as I did not have many of them I only made one American company and one German Company.

We played the generic scenario Bridgehead at company level, being the Germans the attacker and with their platoons reduced to two squads each, but of veteran quality. The Americans took the defensive role and deployed one bunker (the grey ruin in the middle of the board), three wire sections (the three hedges next to the "bunker"), and one minefield hidden in the forest to the left of the wire.Pictures are clickable.The Germans concentrated most of their forces on the right flank and after bombing with the 60 mm. mortar and firing with two unattached MGs, launched an assault to the house occupied by the Americans. I was very lucky with the dice rolls and wiped out all the assaulting squads. Here we realized that playing with just one company per side is a bit limiting as once you lose a whole platoon, it is almost impossible to win.In the their next initiative, the Germans tried again the same tactic and this time it worked. They killed the troops inside the house with MG sustained fire (he rolled and rolled and rolled dice without losing the initiative and until he suppressed them twice and killed them afterwards). After that they took the house and the field to its right (so far they have captured three terrain features of four needed to win).As Germans committed all their forces in the assault to the house, they left unguarded their left flank and I moved out from the bunker and the hill one full platoon with a MG attached, and maneuvered them avoiding enemy reactive fire lines, until I placed them on their back and then exterminated all the German in the rough terrain and the house. The American reinforcements were not needed. Game over.Crossfire can be very fast and mobile at moments as other games cannot. You have to pay attention to fire lines and must manoeuvre to outflank the enemy, using smoke, suppressive fire or diversion strategies. Although it is a bit abstract I quite like it and I will play it again soon. I just wish I had two companies of each instead one.